On Monday, speaking at a state Duma roundtable, Veronika Nikishina, the director general of the Russian Export Center, said that there has been a 50% increase of the number of Russian companies involved in international trade in less than a decade.

In 2016 the number of Russian companies exporting goods was 45,000. By last year that number had increased to 71,000, she revealed at the roundtable, which was focused on the state of the business environment for Russian small and medium sized businesses (SME).

Nikishina noted, “As a result of state support for non-commodity and non-energy exports, the number of Russian companies involved in world trade grew by 57% over six years, which provided a significant contribution to Russia’s investment activity and the economy.”

She pointed out that exports are an additional source of a growth in profits and they allow SMEs in Russia to expand rapidly by drawing upon an international customer base.

German Gref, the head of Sber, the largest state-owned lender in Russia, noted there was not a large enough proportion of SMEs in the Russian economy, with SMEs accounting for only one-fifth of the nation’s GDP.

He noted that in China, SMEs account for 60% to 70% of the national economy, while in the US and Finland, small businesses generate about 60% of the national GDP, and in Italy that figure is more than 70%.

According to the national statistics agency Rosstat, the contribution of SMEs to Russia’s GDP in 2021 was 20.3%. Under a series of national initiatives designed to support SMEs, it is expected that figure will grow to 32.5% by 2024.